Kathleen Hochul was a participant or observer in the following events:

Jack Davis, a Republican candidate for the House of Representatives from the Buffalo, New York, area, suggests that Hispanic farmworkers be deported from the US, and African-Americans from the inner cities be bused to farm country and made to pick the crops. Davis, an industrialist from Akron, makes his comments in an endorsement hearing held by local tea party activists. In 2008, he made similar comments to a Tonawanda News reporter, when he said: “We have a huge unemployment problem with black youth in our cities. Put them on buses, take them out there [to the farms], and pay them a decent wage; they will work.” Many listeners then and now say Davis is, in essence, advocating a return to slavery. After hearing Davis’s comments, Republican leaders deliver their endorsement to another candidate, Assemblywoman Jane L. Corwin. Amherst County GOP chairman Marshall Wood says, “I was thunderstruck” when he heard Davis’s statements. “Maybe in 1860 that might have been seen by some as an appropriate comment, but not now.” Davis shrugs off the reaction to his comments, saying merely, “It’s politics.” Davis’s spokesman W. Curtis Ellis says of Davis’s comments, “It may not be politically correct and it may not be racially correct, but when you have African-American people in Buffalo who do not have jobs and are out of work, why are you bringing people into this country illegally to take jobs?” Davis, Corwin, and others are running in a special election to replace Representative Chris Lee (R-NY), who recently resigned his seat after revelations surfaced about his Internet flirtation with a woman not his wife. Wyoming County GOP chairman Gordon Brown says Davis “repeatedly almost disqualified himself” during the hearing by contradicting typical party positions, raging against illegal immigration and free trade policies. “The most racist part was where he said he was busing the blacks in to pick the vegetables,” Brown says. When Davis made his comment, “the room sort of went silent. It was like, ‘Did I just hear that?’” Davis has run for office as a Democrat three times in the past. He is now attempting to secure enough signatures to run as a tea party candidate. The election will be held May 24. The Democratic candidate opposing Corwin will be Kathleen Hochul, the Erie County clerk. [Buffalo News, 3/15/2011; Raw Story, 3/17/2011; USA Today, 3/21/2011] Buffalo News columnist Rod Watson, a conservative African-American, later complains of the “manufactured outrage” over Davis’s comments, and will praise Davis’s suggestion as “busing jobless young blacks to farms so they can learn work skills while earning an honest dollar.” He will say Davis’s comments are far less insulting than those recently made by Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour (R-MS), a possible 2012 presidential candidate who has extolled the virtues of white supremacist groups. “A white man saying what’s good for blacks is always grist for those looking for advantage in aggrievement,” Watson will write. “It’s part of the unwritten rules on race in a nation still struggling with the issue that only blacks can say such things about blacks, just as only whites can make ‘redneck’ jokes.” Watson will note that African-American radio host Ted Kirkland says: “I’ve advocated that on my show. There’s nothing wrong with hard work and getting your hands dirty.” And Watson will quote Democratic legislator Betty Jean Grant, who says, “Republicans won’t hire black youths for any kind of jobs,” and says she “saw nothing racist” in Davis’s comment. Watson will admit that some find it disconcerting when a white millionaire states his opinion about what should be done for, or to, poor African-Americans. “It’s also fair to ask how many blacks Davis has hired, or how many jobs he has funded in light of his expressed interest in unemployed African-Americans,” he will write. He will conclude that the idea itself must be considered separately from its “suspect source.” [Buffalo News, 3/17/2011] News and blog Web site BlakNewz is more outraged; its administrator will write: “Is that like black slaves picking cotton for the massa? Why not bus in the poor white people in New York State and nearby states to pick the crops?” [BlakNewz, 3/15/2011] Hochul will win a narrow victory over Corwin, delivering the NY-26 seat to the Democratic Party for the first time in decades. Davis, a “tea party” candidate, will garner 9 percent of the vote; in his concession speech, Davis will tell his listeners, “The country needs me.” [Buffalo News, 5/26/2011]

According to data reported by the Sunlight Foundation, Crossroads GPS, the organization raising and spending money on behalf of Republican candidates in the presidential election, reported spending $500,000 on ads attacking President Obama in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, and Missouri. Those ads are somewhat countered by $36,000 of ads aired by Planned Parenthood Action Fund in Florida and Michigan. Under campaign finance law, groups such as these are not required to reveal their donors, though they are required to periodically reveal to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that the ads have been bought, and how much was spent on them. One of Crossroads GPS’s ads accuses Obama of funneling government money to failed projects such as solar panel maker Solyndra, and ignoring those laid off by these companies. The Planned Parenthood ad lauds Obama for protecting access to affordable birth control. Crossroads GPS is a veteran in the post-Citizens United campaign finance world, having spent some $16 million in the 2010 elections, while the Planned Parenthood group is a relatively new player in the field, making its first expenditures on behalf of House candidate Kathy Hochul in 2011. [Sunlight Foundation, 2/7/2012]

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